We are facing a gigantic problem, a tsunami of businesses needing to be sold, as some have called it. So, instead of getting upset at the business owners who don’t sell successfully, we need to look at the mindset of the business owners who do and don’t.
There are plenty of books that tell you how to sell your business successfully. But they are all kind of assuming that you’ve made the decision to sell.
Making up your mind to sell is the most important decision you will ever make. Without the mindset to sell, you’re in the first part of being one of the eight out of ten groups who don’t sell successfully.
You could end up like the son who was going to buy the family transportation business from his father. The dad was originally asking $10 million for the company. It was an unreasonable amount.
Why? Dad knew his business wasn’t worth $10 million and he hadn’t made the decision to sell. There are decisions and then there are wishes, thoughts, or ideas. So everything went upside down.
There were competitors who were willing to look at the deal and buy dad out. He even knew who the good ones were. But the son wanted the company, so the dad kept saying “no” to the other buyers. The father and son went back and forth for nine months, and things just weren’t going as well as planned.
The seller had wasted nine months with this buyer. Sure, you might say, “but the buyer was his son.” What if it wasn’t?
The dad really didn’t want to sell, and at the end of nine months, both father and son realized they had stretched themselves too far. They created way too much complexity. They had hit a wall.
It was a big mistake going down that path.
Finally, the father and his son decided that it wasn’t going to work because it just wasn’t a good fit. Situations like this can result in an enormous strain for the entire family ... including Christmas dinners.
I don’t know what happened to that transportation company, but I’ve seen too many business make the same mistakes, over and over again.
The owner is in denial about how much their business is worth. Why? They are not qualified to create a realistic valuation. They have spent their lives pouring everything to that business. Emotions and sweat equity have to count for something—right?
Not always.
It takes the right mindset, and that’s what we are going to explore first.
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